The Friends of Eddie Coyle

1973 Directed by Peter Yates

It’s a grubby, violent, dangerous world. But it’s the only world they know. And they’re the only friends Eddie has.

An aging hood is about to go back to prison. Hoping to escape his fate, he supplies information on stolen guns to the feds, while simultaneously supplying arms to his bank robbing chums.

Robert Mitchum Peter Boyle Richard Jordan Steven Keats Alex Rocco Joe Santos Mitchell Ryan Peter MacLean Marvin Lichterman Carolyn Pickman Matthew Cowles Helena Carroll Jack Kehoe Margaret Ladd Jane House Alan Koss Dennis McMullen Judith Ogden Cabot Robert Anthony Gustave Johnson Sheldon Feldner Ted Maynard Kevin O'Morrison James Tolkan Jan Egleson Michael McCleery

Alternative Titles

Les amis d'Eddie Coyle, Adieu mon salaud, Os Amigos de Eddie Coyle, Der V-Mann

drama thriller crime

102 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★½ 60

Robert Mitchum as Eddie Coyle; a low-level Boston gangsta facing an upcoming prison sentence he doesn't want to even think about serving. He's old. He's tired. He doesn't want to put another burden on his wife and kids. He's a desperate man, in the most desperate situation of his life. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. But, that light is for rats, and not ones found in sewers. A government agent with his own personal agenda offers Eddie a deal: inform, and maybe he will get his sentence reduced. What does a man do when the life he's lived and the friends he's made is the reason he's at this crossing point? Is honor or family more…
Review by Scott Tobias ★★★★★ 5

Robert Mitchum may be my all-time favorite actor, and I can think of no more ideal late-career role for him than as an aging, defeated crook who tries to sell out his "friends" to avoid another few years up the river, but winds up playing a rigged game. What struck me most this time around is how masterfully Peter Yates stages the handful of suspense setpieces in this film-- very Rififi-esque in the way they develop quietly and matter-of-factly, with minimal sound cues. Seems to be that Yates' lack of big '70s auteur status is the only thing keeping this movie from being considered among the decade's best.
Review by Sally Jane Black 11

One thing I love about this site is that it has experts on it. I don't mean bonafide experts of some official level, but folks who have a favorite genre or style of film. I love experts because I know I can find an interesting take on a genre from them; they know the tropes and the classics and the deep cuts. The deep cuts are the best part, the hidden gems, the side Bs that are much better than the hit singles. They do the digging for you and guide you to the sweet stuff. If I want a horror movie, especially a great slasher, I know Hollie and Richard have me covered. For giallo and krimi--and for a…
Review by Nakul ★★★★★ 4

Peter Yates's THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE is a masterpiece! A crime procedural with an emphasis more on characters & dialogue than creating action spectacles. Top-notch photography & a colorful cast of characters, led by an extraordinary performance from Robert Mitchum.
One of the greatest crime movies of all-time.
Review by nickusen 1

All you need to make a perfect crime flick is a couple of handguns and a handful of balding men who look like alcoholic longshoremen
Review by Sid ★★★★★

Peter Yates's masterpiece captures the melancholy of crime world like no other.A nihilistic world full of betrayals where no one can be a friend and there's no path for escape or salvation.
Despite the film's cynical tone hinting how the lead character's gonna end up,you still root for him and this is where the excellent casting choice of the legendary Robert Mitchum comes into play.This is a film where you can't spot a single bad performance,everyone gets into the skin of their respective character.
I also loved the clever use of music in some scenes.For, eg:towards the end,they use light-hearted music while something horrible happens.Tarantino,a fan of this film also did the same in that iconic Ear cutting scene from Reservoir dogs,one can draw many other parallels from his movies to know how much it has influenced his filmmaking career.
This is easily one of the best crime films ever and to no surprise,it belongs to the 70s.
Review by DallasFrance ★★★★★ 5

Every meeting in The Friends of Eddie Coyle is in a public setting. Sometimes they’re in a bar, sometimes they’re in a supermarket parking lot, and sometimes they’re in a park on the outskirts of town. Wherever these meetings take place, the behavioral protocol is standard. Trust no one. Size them up with a glance. Make it clear that you don’t give a sh*t about what the other person is offering. Take it or leave it, but be quick about it. Everyone’s suspect. If you think for a second that loyalty, ethics, and logic are part of the equation, it’s the penitentiary or a coffin for you.
In Michael Mann’s film Heat, Robert De Niro famously says, “Don’t let yourself get attached…
Review by Richard Chandler ★★★★½ 10

CRITERION CHALLENGE 2021: 7. Wes Anderson's Top 10
Progress: 13/52
"I should have known better than to trust a cop; my own goddamn mother could have told me that."
At first glance, RADA-trained English former stage actor Peter Yates might seem like an unlikely director for a businesslike Boston crime saga, but his dingy The Friends of Eddie Coyle really puts the 'zero' in zero-sum game. Scripted by producer Paul Monash from a 1970 novel by one-time Assistant U.S. Attorney of Massachusetts George V. Higgins, the film stars a perfectly restrained Robert Mitchum as the titular Coyle—a low-level gunrunner scrambling to simultaneously supply small arms to a local crew of bank robbers and feed a shady narc (Richard Jordan) enough…
Review by matt lynch ★★★★ 1

"Can you imagine being a kid like that? What is he, 24 or something? Greatest hockey player in the world. Number four, Bobby Orr. Jeez, what a future he’s got, huh?"
Review by Branson Reese 1

Peter Boyle just always looked like that. I think he was 18 in this movie.
Review by Tom Spearing ★★★★½ 13

I absolutely loved the mood of this one. Everything from the bluntly cynical dialogue with its distinct Bostonian twang, to the morally bankrupt and melancholy characters, to the dingy and dimly-lit interiors, to the most archetypical jazz-funk soundtrack you could possibly hope for, just screams all of the finest qualities that 70s crime noir has to offer. There’s enough knife-edge suspense in the heist sequences here to rival even the most tightly-wound modern thriller—all achieved merely with smart camerawork, intuitive editing, and with barely a single weapon being fired. It’s fascinating that a film that revolves almost entirely around the illegal supply of firearms, and the use of them to hold up banks, contains perhaps only two or three incidences…
Review by Wilson ★★★★★ 3

Robert Mitchum's career had more ups and downs than most; he was never the most consistent of actors when it came to choosing great scripts. However, when he was on, he was on. The early-to-mid '70s gave him one of the best runs of his career. 1973' The Friends of Eddie Coyle; 1974' The Yakuza and 1975' Farewell, My Lovely. All three films play on Mitchum's aged weariness, his faltering ability. Though, it is The Friends of Eddie Coyle that adds a layer of pure desperation to Mitchum's performance.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a bleak procedural that focuses on petty criminals. It has the dialogue that George V Higgins was celebrated for, with the grim, professional crimes that…

Recent reviews

Review by Dopestoevsky

Permanent goddamn fink
Review by portr

This life’s hard but it’s harder if you’re stupid.
This is a great, if dour, movie. Criminality absolutely dehedonised - constrictive hustles nothing a brutal, endless laminate of munitions and betrayal; even when they think they aren't, everybody's selling everybody - especially themselves - out.
Review by Aaron Murray ★★★★

As we grow older, we become more desperate. Desperate to live & feel something again, desperate to feel young and desperate to end things right. Death is an inevitable part of life but it's the thing you can have the most time to prepare for. The thing is, Eddie Coyle isn't acting desperate because he's at the end of his life. Sure, he's old and he's tired with a wife & children that he feels he's a burden towards. But, death is not what he's afraid of, it's the thought of going behind bars.
Eddie Coyle lives in a dangerous and cruel world but it's the world that he's grown used to. He's a man who weasels his way into deals and…
Review by SlothBaBomb ★★★★½

I really enjoyed watching this having seen a bunch of earlier Robert Mitchum. He really is the glue of this movie. I really love all the details. Maybe I’m nostalgic for a time that never existed for me but seen the beer cans the beer glasses the phone booths the old bank machines the cars the film green all the old shops and styles shopping that don’t exist anymore it’s a world it doesn’t exist anymore. Sad tale
Review by jhomsie ★★★★

Everyone in this film looks like shit, it's great
Review by timmypotts ★★★★½

“This life’s hard but it’s harder if you’re stupid”
Review by Dawson Joyce ★★★★★

Lost in New Hollywood
Without a doubt one of the all-time great neo-noir crime dramas, The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a relentlessly nasty, thoroughly grim exploration of the criminal lifestyle and the harsh, deeply sad realities that come with living such a lifestyle, anchored by sensational work from Robert Mitchum and Richard Jordan and further backed up by Peter Yates' steady, gritty direction.
Review by loiseauchien ★★★★

Mob middle management
Review by mattpizana ★★★★★

I said god damn what a good movie. I only caught the second half on this viewing. Poor Eddie's downhill slide is already in full swing. I still can't decide if it was nice taking him to a hockey game before killing him or if it was just sadistic. Maybe I'll figure out next time.
Review by BelgianGuy ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Eddie Coyle is an aging, Massachusets based criminal who has just been caught driving a truck full of stolen merchandise. His unwillingness to give up his associates means he is likely to go to prison for a 3 to 5 year stint, even though he now deems himself too old for any lengthy prison stretch and his family desperately needs the money he provides.
Even though he is no more than weeks away from having to start his sentence, he is still in the game, providing guns to acquaintances of his who pull off a series of daring bank heists where the bank manager and his family are held hostage for access to the vault. To that end, he has…
Review by psiko ★★★

interesting? ig? this movie was not made for me
Review by Billy the Kid ★★★★½

Might just have to shoot myself because I’ll never be as cool as Robert Mitchum.